- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
An update:
- fmhy.ml is gone, due to the ongoing fiasco with mali government taking all their .ml domains back
- As such, lemmy.fmhy.ml is also gone, we are currently exploring ways to refederate (or somehow restart federation entirely) without breaking anything substantial
- We have backups, so don’t worry about data loss (you can view them on other instances anyway)
Currently, we have fmhy.net and are exploring options to somehow migrate, thank you for your patience.
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This is precisely why my experiments with servers and internet technology stop whenever a dns is mentioned.
If i need to pay a subscription or otherwise rely on a centralized entity its not independent hosting and my interest in it disappears instantly.
Or don’t rely on a country code tld thats being used for vanity purposes.
I’m kind of curious about how you think the internet works.
It works very different from how i would want it to work for sure. I specified internet technology for a reason though. The creative limit i put on myself is that all systems should remain fully independent with the exception of hardware requirements. Everything remains local for now.
That’s a pretty specific requirement but luckily you can host your own VPN and access it on your device and then access the service you’re hosting via a local address. So if you do run into this again know that there is a way to circumvent the need to rely on *checks notes* DNS.
you rely on centralised entities every day to use the internet… ICANN, IANA, and a few more right at the top, government agencies to manage IP ranges etc, whoever owns your IP block, whoever provides your network… TBH you rely on cloudflare even if you never pay them because they CDN half the damn internet. you reply on google and amazon simply because again they host services you use
don’t kid yourself, the internet works because of centralised bodies; not despite them! DNS is the least of your concern; at least those names are commoditised and have enough scrutiny (unless you choose a TLD that doesn’t have favourable TOS) BY those centralised authorities that they’re pretty untouchable short of legal challenges
I know, i specified “internet technology” for this reason.
I run a few websites and servers all of them are local only. Society can go to hell, my stuff isn’t relying on it.
I also use the internet of course but thats outside of my creative ventures.
Eh, you can self host your name system though. OpenNIC does exactly that. The problem is convincing other people to use your resolver instead of using ICANN.
I’m happy with the app because I would get suspicious every time the link changes again… pffff
Prolly a noob question but why was the .ml TLD chosen in the first place?
The scuttlebutt is that it’s a inside joke by the far-left dev of lemmy to stand for marxist-leninist, but it’s just as likely, if not more, that it was chosen because it’s free.
Keep in mind that most (all?) two-letter TLDs are associated with a country. This includes stuff like
.io,.tv, and.meIt was free
I can see that it’s enticing to get a free domain… But domain costs are trivial. Like $10 a year, why risk it?
Well, I guess they just learned the hard way
This is why we host our instance on a .org. Honestly another huge blow for Lemmy. It doesn’t really inspire confidence in the platform. Hopefully after enough time passes smaller instances like us and the bigger ones left will have help up a good track record to inspire confidence again.
Only one went down - most everyone else are still up.
This is the opposite of a blow. It directly shows the resilience of the fediverse.
Where I live i cant access any .ml instances so for me even the lemmy.ml is down
This just shows how putting all eggs into one basket is a bad idea.
Only the fewest of few instances should have used .ml - they should have spread out. This is the beauty of the fediverse when done as intended.
The only drawback I see, is that people want to make instances bigger, scaling tall, when they should have been scaling wide + wanting to use the same odd TLD. We reap what we sow.
This isn’t really that huge of a blow, it’s a learning curve sure but just because some people made dumb decisions on what TLD to use based on something they decided it means (and backtracked to say they chose it because it was free, I know) doesn’t mean federated platforms don’t work. Actually imo it points to the strength of federation that we can still be here using lemmy on our instances while they switch.
All this really did was teach instance owners (who this might be their first experience hosting things too btw) that you have to use a TLD that is more stable like a .org, .com, .net, etc over a “free” one, and this is afaik the first instance of something like this happening, so honestly they didn’t have precedent to base this on before.
Exactly, IMO this has nothing to do with lemmy itself and everything to do with dumbass domain names.
By no means did i mean that federated platform’s wont work, far from it. Im more considering the reputational damage of the platform. For me all the .ml instances unresolvable. And it doesn’t look good when the “official” instance is lost. If i were an outsider considering moving to lemmy and i saw vlemmy disappear, lemmy world get hacked, and .ml loosing their domains id be pretty hesitant on making the switch. Thats where i sit for the moment. Lets all hope we can get a good track record going now.
It was good while it lasted and they managed to keep it going longer than my first instance (two days)
Not all instances are created equal however one I tried to sign upto their email verification didn’t work and others just didn’t bother to activate my account for whatever the reason.
Happy to see your on shitjustworks now, it’s a solid one
Thanks for that, was concerned about keeping my subscription to that community. Keep us posted and let us know where you end up so I can change over my community subscription.
Anyway I think the lesson learned here is don’t use free TLDs. Lemmy is not at all designed to deal with domain name changes.
Is Mali gov just removing all DNS records without warning?
No respect for existing contracts, or at least some heads up a couple of months earlier.Governments just love doing stuff whenever they can, because what are you gonna do? This is a country under a military junta, there is no legal process to get back the domain.
They just handed off the management of .ml domains to a third party on a ten-year contract, and the contract is now ending.
So I guess Mali is honouring its contracts, and I doubt the third party provided anyone with contracts going beyond the ten year period they could guarantee for. I doubt the third party provided contracts at all to be honest.
Freenom (the third party in question) has been pretty shady for years. I got burned with their free .tk names a few times back in the day.
Is there some news coverage on the mali governments actions? I couldn’t find anything on my quick google search
I initially started on Lemmy.ml but decided to look for smaller instances. Not only just to be safe for stuff like this, but also to find a tighter community. I found an instance dedicated to the area I grew up around and have been really happy with that move.
Does this have anything to do with the whole email thing from the American military? According to the financial times, there are about 117.000 emails send to .ML addresses instead of .MIL…
Nah, it’s more that this is about to get worse when those mails all go to a state closely associated with Russia.
Somewhat related. Basically, the management of the .ml TLD are being handed back to Mali government, and they seem to revoking.ml domains left and right.
I suspect they’re revoking registration for .ml domains that was registered for free. the company that originally managed .ml domains had a free domain offers where you could register any .ml domain for free, the caveat is you don’t have the ownership right to that free domain. Maybe Mali government doesn’t honor such free domain registration and wish to revoke them all.
glad to see them not go down the vlemmy path
Damn, lemmy.zip, eh? If that instance is public, I don’t see that being a good thing.
Tons of businesses, people, etc, are all banning .zip and .mov TLDs for security purposes. I’ve personally banned all those domains from my network as well.
Bold move.
What’s the issue with those TLDs?
See https://youtu.be/GCVJsz7EODA and https://youtu.be/V82lHNsSPww
There are a few problems, but I believe the biggest issue is that .zip and .mov are valid and common file extensions, and it’s common for people to write something like ‘example dot zip’ or ‘attachment dot mov’ in emails, tweets, etc. Things like email clients have features where they automatically convert text that looks like a web address into clickable links. So now, retroactively, all those emails etc suddenly have a link, where they used to just have text, and the domains that are equivalent to those previously benign file names are being purchased by nefarious actors to exploit people unaware of the issue.
But there’s only an issue if the software you’re using auto linkifies the domain. They often don’t and won’t. This seems like a hypothetical problem that probably doesn’t exist for most major software. I certainly know no email software is gonna auto linkify this.
If you’re curious, you can see if whatever software you’re viewing this post in auto linkifies (neither are for me): hshshssu.zip iwuf8aowk.mov
(And if we’re manually linkifying, then you don’t need to use the new TLD. Eg, not-a-virus.zip.)
At 1:30 in that second video, he shows that YouTube already converts dot zip domains, even in old comments that predate the domain’s existence. At 3:19, he shows/mentions Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I would consider those major platforms. And keep in mind, it only takes one person downloading one file to cause major damage - the LMG hack was due to someone downloading and trying to open a fake PDF that was sent via email: https://youtu.be/yGXaAWbzl5A.
So yes, not everything does or will auto convert the links, but I think you are underestimating the potential for issues here.
Yeah, you have a point. I may go block those TLDs tonight.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/GCVJsz7EODA
https://piped.video/V82lHNsSPww
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Actually really huge security threats. It’s a very good idea to block them. I especially did because my girlfriend works for the government and does some secret stuff that can’t really get out, and she deals with a ton of real .zip files. I think everyone regardless of who they are should make sure to block them.
i don’t doubt there have been a lot of cases of those tlds used for scams but i haven’t been negatively effected by this instances domain name.
feel free to read the discussion about it here though
I can’t open that link because I block .zip domains lol
What happened to vlemmy?
Nobody really knows for sure. It just sort of disappeared one day with no warning.
Is this going to be an unsolved mystery of the Internet? A spooky Fediverse legend?
Yes, that’s reassuring. Also, nice to see their main website, I never actually noticed it existed
What about lemmy.ml? Can govt just take their domain?
I think in theory yes, since the .ml tld is now managed by the Mali government instead of some guy that had an agreement with them.
First I join Vlemmy.net and then FMHY.ML… I am afraid whatever instance I join next will collapse 😭
Are you me? Same instances, same order…
…same fear.
.ee is owned by Estonia. Just pray Estonia wouldn’t do the same shenanigan and cause your instance to go down.
tbf Estonia is a stable EU country and Sunaurus (the admin of lemm.ee) is from Estonia so it’s not that strange
I also joined vlemmy.net and it came down between fmhy.ml and sh.itjust.works. Guess I got lucky!
what happened with vlemmy?
The instance up and disappeared right after it’s admin said they were going g to defederate with another instance. There was no warning it was just gone the next day.
There is lots of speculation around it, but I think the admin got scared of the implication that their servers still held content from the other instance that was illegal in their country.
oh thanks.
I’m sorry but for the good of all instances I’m afraid you will need to become a lurker 😔
What happens when it goes down, will all of the posts be gone?
Now that we see things like this can happen, maybe we can make it easier to resolve going forward.
